Chapter 36 Something Real

Kai sat on the edge of his bed, the quiet hum of morning drifting through the open window. The sounds of the girls laughing faintly in the kitchen mixed with the clinking of dishes and the occasional burst of giggles.

He rubbed the side of his neck, fingers brushing the bruise hidden beneath his collar. His ribs ached—not with dream-pain, not the sort that fades like mist. No, this throbbed. Dull. Present. Real.

He reached down to the side drawer of the small desk pressed against the wall. There, tucked beneath his few spare shirts, lay a worn leather-bound book. He opened it slowly.

Inside were hastily scribbled pages of thoughts, maps, dates, oddities—observations that didn’t add up.

> “Day 14? 15? No signs of waking. Pain lingers. Dreams don’t linger.”

“Skye dodged left when I imagined right. I didn’t predict it. Felt… foreign.”

“Food spoiled. Mold. Never seen rot in a dream.”

“Smelled smoke in the mountains that wasn’t ours. Passed days later and found a real burned tree.”

He tapped the page with his pen.

> “This is either the most detailed lucid dream ever—or it’s not a dream.”

A knock at the door pulled him from his thoughts.

Skye peeked in, holding something in her hands. Her ears twitched. “Sorry… um… I finished this.”

She walked in and laid his coat across his lap. The torn seam was gone. The stitching was careful, hand-done. She’d patched the lining, reinforced the shoulder. It smelled faintly of pine and whatever soft thing she used when she brushed her hair.

“I… I didn’t want you walking around with holes in your clothes,” she mumbled.

Tucked in the pocket was a tiny folded piece of parchment. He opened it.

> Please don’t get hurt again. I’m not as fast without you. –Skye

He stared at it longer than he meant to. The writing was small, careful. Her hand had trembled.

“Thanks,” he said, quietly.

Skye flushed, nodded, and backed out of the room, ears twitching again before vanishing around the corner.

He placed the coat beside him and looked down again at his journal. The ink on the page had begun to dry.

A few minutes later, Fara entered without knocking—just a soft rustle of robes and her presence. She didn’t speak at first, just walked past him and placed a small vial on the bedside table.

The glass glimmered faintly. The cork stopper was etched with a tiny fox sigil. Handmade.

“What’s this?”

“Balm,” she replied. “You’re not hiding it well.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“Your side. You’ve been favoring it since we got back. I made it from mountain herbs. It’ll help.”

He reached for it, but she tapped his hand gently. “Don’t be stubborn. You have us now.”

His fingers lingered near hers a moment longer before he nodded once. No pride. Just… acceptance.

And finally, as if the day weren’t strange enough, Revoli burst in like a firework with a crumpled parchment in her hands.

“TA-DA!” she said, grinning wide, cheeks flushed with excitement. “I made you something.”

She tossed it onto his lap and beamed, waiting like a child proud of her creation.

It was a drawing—barely coherent scribbles—of him and the girls. Fara was tall and majestic, her tails nearly engulfing the sky. Skye tiny with oversized eyes, dual blades crossed behind her. Revoli herself stood bold with big pink horns and a fiery grin, her barbed devil tail curling around her ankles. And Kai? Center stage, broad-shouldered and strong, with all three girls clinging to him like their anchor.

But what made him freeze wasn’t the chaos. It was the smile on his face.

It wasn’t smug or grumpy. It was warm. At peace.

“You’re smiling in this one,” she said, her voice suddenly softer. “You don’t do that enough.”

Kai didn’t know what to say. He folded the drawing carefully—too carefully—and tucked it inside the back of his journal, where it wouldn’t get bent.

When they left the room, one after the other, he stared out the window for a long time.

He tapped his pen to the paper once more.

> “They dream. They feel. They care. I didn’t invent this.”

“No way this is just a dream.”

He set the journal down and exhaled slowly.

Then, for the first time in days, he allowed himself to smile.

And this one was real.